Unexploded Israeli bombs threaten lives as Gaza clears debris, finds bodies

Israeli restrictions connected the introduction of dense machinery are crippling Gaza City’s efforts to wide debris and rebuild captious infrastructure, the city’s politician says, arsenic tens of thousands of tonnes of unexploded Israeli bombs endanger lives crossed the Gaza Strip.

In a Sunday quality conference, Mayor Yahya al-Sarraj said Gaza City requires astatine slightest 250 dense vehicles and 1,000 tonnes of cement to support h2o networks and conception wells.

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Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from az-Zawayda successful Gaza, said lone six trucks had entered the territory.

At slightest 9,000 Palestinians stay buried nether the rubble. But the caller instrumentality is being prioritised for recovering the remains of Israeli captives, alternatively than assisting Palestinians successful locating their loved ones inactive trapped beneath rubble.

“Palestinians accidental they cognize determination won’t beryllium immoderate developments successful the ceasefire until the bodies of each the Israeli captives are returned,” Khoudary said.

Footage circulating connected societal media showed Red Cross vehicles arriving aft meetings with Hamas’s equipped wing, the Qassam Brigades, to usher them to the determination of an Israeli captive successful confederate Rafah.

An Israeli authorities spokesperson said that to hunt for captives’ remains, the Red Cross and Egyptian teams person been permitted beyond the ceasefire’s “yellow line”, which allows Israel to clasp power implicit 58 percent of the besieged enclave.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Amman, said Israel spent 2 weeks insisting that Hamas knew the locations of each the captives’ bodies.

“Two weeks into that, Israel has present allowed Egyptian teams and dense machinery to participate the Gaza Strip to assistance successful the mammoth task of removing debris, of trying to get to the tunnels oregon underneath the homes oregon structures that the captives were held successful and killed in,” she said.

Odeh added that Hamas had been incapable to entree a passageway for 2 weeks owed to the harm caused by Israeli bombing. “That alteration of argumentation is coming without mentation from Israel,” she said, noting that the Red Cross and Hamas person besides been allowed to assistance find imaginable burial sites nether the rubble.

Netanyahu: ‘We power Gaza’

Meanwhile, connected Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to reassert governmental authorization astatine home, saying that Israel controls which overseas forces whitethorn run successful Gaza.

“We power our ain security, and we person made wide to planetary forces that Israel volition determine which forces are unacceptable to america – and that is however we enactment and volition proceed to act,” helium said. “This is, of course, accepted by the United States, arsenic its astir elder representatives expressed successful caller days.”

Odeh explained that Netanyahu’s statements are intended to reassure the far-right basal successful Israel, which thinks he’s nary longer calling the shots.

Those presently overseeing the ceasefire bash not look to beryllium Israeli soldiers oregon service leadership, she explained, with Washington “requesting that Israel notify it up of clip of immoderate onslaught that Israel mightiness beryllium readying to behaviour wrong Gaza”.

Odeh noted that Israel’s insistence connected controlling which overseas actors run successful Gaza – combined with the constricted entree for reconstruction – underscores a broader strategy to support governmental enactment astatine home.

Unexploded bombs a threat

Reconstruction successful Gaza faces further obstacles from unexploded ordnance. Nicholas Torbet, Middle East manager astatine HALO Trust successful the United Kingdom, said Gaza is “essentially 1 elephantine city” wherever each portion has been struck by explosives.

“Some munitions are designed to linger, but what we’re acrophobic astir successful Gaza is ordnance that is expected to detonate upon interaction but hasn’t,” helium told Al Jazeera.

Torbet said clearing explosives is slowing the reconstruction process. His teams program to enactment straight wrong communities to safely region bombs alternatively than marking disconnected ample areas indefinitely. “The champion mode to dispose of a weaponry is to usage a tiny magnitude of explosives to stroke it up,” helium explained.

Torbet added that the indispensable instrumentality is comparatively elemental and tin beryllium transported successful tiny vehicles oregon by hand, and advancement is opening to instrumentality place.

The standard of explosives dropped by Israel has near Gaza littered with deadly remnants.

Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defence, told Al Jazeera that Israel dropped astatine slightest 200,000 tonnes of explosives connected the territory, with astir 70,000 tonnes failing to detonate.

Yahya Shorbasi, who was injured by an unexploded ordnance on with his six-year-old duplicate sister Nabila, lies connected a furniture astatine al-Shifa Hospital successful Gaza City, Saturday, October 25, 2025 [Abdel Kareem Hana/AP]

Children person been peculiarly affected, often mistaking bombs for toys. Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili reported the lawsuit of seven-year-old Yahya Shorbasi and his sister Nabila, who were playing extracurricular erstwhile they recovered what appeared to beryllium a toy.

“They recovered a regular children’s artifact – conscionable an mean one. The miss was holding it. Then the lad took it and started tapping it with a coin. Suddenly, we heard the dependable of an explosion. It went disconnected successful their hands,” their parent Latifa Shorbasi told Al Jazeera.

Yahya’s close limb had to beryllium amputated, portion Nabila remains successful intensive care.

Dr Harriet, an exigency doc astatine al-Shifa Hospital successful Gaza City, described the concern arsenic “a nationalist wellness catastrophe waiting to unfold”. She said children are being injured by items that look harmless – toys, cans, oregon debris – but are really unrecorded explosives.

United Nations Mine Action Service caput Luke David Irving said 328 radical person already been killed oregon injured by unexploded ordnance since October 2023.

Tens of thousands of tonnes of bombs, including landmines, mortar rounds, and ample bombs susceptible of flattening factual buildings, stay buried crossed Gaza. Basal said clearing the explosives could instrumentality years and necessitate millions of dollars.

For Palestinians, the concern is simply a contention against time. Al Jazeera’s Khoudary said civilians are pressing for faster progress: “They privation reconstruction, they privation state of movement, and they privation to spot and consciousness that the ceasefire is going to marque it.”